


Happiness and Donuts

by SophieHatter



Series: Merry Ficmas 2018 [7]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas With Family, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Season/Series 10, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 18:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17106023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieHatter/pseuds/SophieHatter
Summary: “Look, here’s Daniel. What Christmas carol was he singing?” Sam passed the photo to Cassie.“Oh my. He was trying to teach me O Tannebaum. In German.”





	Happiness and Donuts

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to SamCaarter!
> 
> Hope you like your Secret Santa gift. <3
> 
> Here was the request:  
> Christmas tree decorations, hot chocolate, and old photos.

As Jack carried the tray of mugs into the living room, his eyes played over his beautiful wife. Her blonde head dipped over a shoebox full of cards and photos, awkwardly flicking through them one handed, a fair haired baby, just three weeks old, tucked into the crook of her arm.

Setting the tray on the coffee table, Jack put a mug laden with cream on the side table next to her and bent over to kiss the crown of Sam’s head.

“Want me to take her?” He offered as Sam tilted her face up towards his.

Sam’s eyes went to the tray of mugs he’d just set down and then to the empty couch opposite.

Jack shook his head fondly, “Cassie and Ben can help themselves. C’mon, gimme.” The eager glint in his eyes and the boyish grasping gesture he made had Sam relenting immediately.

Meeting Jack’s lips for a kiss, Sam let Jack take his daughter and watched as the pair settled into Jack’s recliner. He shifted until he had Grace curled in the centre of his shirt, her head just below his chin.

“I forgot how good you look with a baby on your chest,” Sam told him.

“Hot? Sexy?” Jack fished.

“Mine,” Sam purred, giving him a heated look. “Now you’re retired.”

“So all of the above,” her silver haired husband replied, fixing her with a gaze that made Sam’s insides turn liquid.

All around them was quiet, but for the crackle of the fire. The lights on the tree twinkled, refracted sparkles from all the ornaments covered the ceiling and walls. Sam noticed that upstairs had gone quiet, JJ and Angus finally settled down after all the excitement of Christmas Eve.

Meeting Jack’s eyes again, Sam blew him a kiss across the room. Once she had felt selfish about wanting him to retire, now she was at peace with it. They’d done their time and the SGC still had one of them, even if she was flying a desk nowadays. And JJ and Grace deserved a reliable parent.

“Oh, get a room,” Cassie teased, coming down the stairs, Ben close behind her. “Two kids are enough, surely?”

“You two have a lot to learn if you’re only having sex for procreation,” Jack shot back, getting a sly look on his face when Ben spluttered and turned red.

Sam gave Jack a look that clearly told him to behave himself. Her husband ignored it, a lost cause when it came to teasing Cassie and stirring up her bespectacled partner.

“Oh, Ben honey, you’ve got to learn how to give it back. You’ll never have any peace from him until you do,” Sam said. Ben swallowed and looked stricken. Sometimes it was hard to believe that Ben was more afraid of (newly retired) Brigadier General O’Neill than the Jaffa, Go’auld and the other off-world races he met weekly.

Cassie took two mugs from the tray, one with marshmallows, one with cream. “I trust these are suitably enhanced?” She asked Jack.

“Frangelico for you, Bailey’s for Ben,” Jack confirmed as Cassie handed the mug with cream to Ben.

“Were the boys easy to get down?” Sam asked Cassie as she patted the empty couch in invitation.

“JJ was fine,” Ben answered, looking around awkwardly, unsure where to sit.

Cassie sat down close to Sam, leaving enough room for Ben to sit on the arm of the couch. “You know how he loves the voices Ben does for story time. Angus, on the other hand ...” Cass sighed.

“He’s just excited for Santa to come,” Ben defended their three year old son. “I remember what it was like when I was little, trying to stay awake.”

Shrugging, Cassie leaned into him. “I shall defer to you on the subject of Santa.”

Sam snorted as she found a relevant photo. “Here, Ben. This is Cassie totally outing Jack as Santa on her first Christmas.” She passed the photo of the ten year old Cassie poking Jack in his falsely padded stomach while Janet laughed in the corner of the frame.

Ben suppressed a chuckle at the indignation shown by the little girl. Then he looked at the photo a little longer. “It’s a good one of your Mom.”

Turning her head, Cassie looked closely as Ben held the photo out to her. “It is. I remember that she was so worried that first year, but after Christmas Eve, she seemed a lot happier.” Cassie looked thoughtfully over at Jack, who had Grace under his chin, the footrest up on his lounger, half asleep.

“What?” Jack asked, finding himself the centre of attention.

Sam just smirked as Cassie gave Jack a warm smile. “Look, here’s Daniel. What Christmas carol was he singing?” She passed the photo to Cassie this time.

“Oh my. He was trying to teach me O Tannebaum. In German.”

“Ah, yes,” Sam remembered. “And he wanted us to go carolling the next year, except we had to learn all the Christmas hymns in old English.”

“Really?” Ben perked up, “How did that go?”

Sam and Cassie laughed together.

“It didn’t,” Cassie told him. “Not all of us share the fascination you and Daniel have for languages. Not even at Christmas.”

With a sly smile, Ben murmured to Cassie, “You seem pretty _fascinated_ when I whisper in Latin, or Arabic.”

Pressing her lips together to suppress a grin as Cassie blushed, Sam offered another photo to the pair, “I think this was that first year.”

Cassie smiled as she gazed fondly at the photo. She and Janet were decorating a Christmas tree and the photo had captured Cassie hanging a bauble inscribed with ‘Cassandra’s First Christmas’. Taking a long look at the picture, Ben placed his hand on his partner’s shoulder, thumb stroking the back of her neck.

Looking away, Sam gave the couple a private moment together, eyes falling on the little girl who was about to experience her first Christmas. Safe and trusting in her Daddy’s care, just as Cassie had trusted Jack when she was still frightened and traumatised, trying to adapt to life in Colorado.

“I still have it,” Cassie said, her voice tight with emotion. “We didn’t get them out this year ‘cause we’re here with you guys, but we put them up last year.”

Sam reached for Cassie, brushing the back of her fingers over the younger woman’s cheek. “I remember taking this photo. Shall we put it on the mantle? We can show JJ and Gus tomorrow.”

Cassie nodded, wiping at her eyes. “I have one - a bauble - for Gracie. And JJ’s is on the tree. So we can tell them the story and ...”

Leaning over to kiss the top of Cassie’s head, Ben finished for her, “They’ll know who your Mom was.”

The gesture of comfort was so familiar between Sam and Jack, that Sam felt her heart skip a beat. For all that Jack enjoyed riling Ben up, they both agreed that Cassie had chosen well when she’d set her eye on Daniel’s xenolinguistics PhD student.

“We should put these other ones up, too,” Cassie suggested. “Are there any of T in there?”

Sam chuckled, “Oh yes. Here.” She handed over one of SG-1, arms all around each other, wearing Santa hats and laughing. Sam couldn’t remember exactly what had them all so merry, but she could guess it had something to do with Teal’c and the hat that perched on the top of his bald head. A hat far too small for such a wide pate.

“Oh, I like this one! I need a copy of this, Sam.”

“I’ll scan it for you,” Sam replied, placing the shoebox on the table and taking the photos to place on the mantle, over the children’s and adult’s stockings that were hung up, waiting for Santa. She paced back to Cassie and took the picture of SG-1 from her. “We were all so young. We had no idea what was ahead of us.”

“Happiness,” Jack murmured, eyes shut and surprising them all. “And donuts.”

Sam and Cassie exchanged a tolerant grin and Sam propped the photo up with the others.

“I think I’ll take Santa and his elf to bed,” Sam told Cassie and Ben. “You guys ok to look after yourselves?”

Cassie shifted over with a nod, Ben sliding in to place beside her, wrapping Cassie in his arms.

Sam scooped Grace off Jack’s chest and then prodded him fully awake with her knee. “Hey, time for bed. Can you check on the boys on your way?”

“Did someone drink the milk and eat the cookies?” Jack wondered.

“I’ll do it,” Ben volunteered.

Jack pulled himself out of his chair and nodded to Ben, “Glad to see that you take Santa duties seriously.”

When Ben gave Jack a relaxed nod, Sam reflected that maybe their pseudo son-in-law could come to an understanding of Jack and the way he liked to bug the heck out of the people that mattered to him.

“G’night, guys,” Sam called over her shoulder as she carried Grace to bed, “Merry Christmas.”


End file.
